


Side Effects May Include

by within_a_dream



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 08:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5861218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/pseuds/within_a_dream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chandler starts a new medication regimen and develops a host of side effects; the rest of the team reacts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Side Effects May Include

The boss had been especially weird lately, but “especially weird” was subjective, and it wasn’t like Mansell didn’t have his own habits that the rest of the team overlooked. They tolerated the Tiger Balm and the excessive organization, HR didn’t call them in for some sort of bullshit sensitivity training, everyone was happy. 

Maybe there was a point when you should pull your DI aside, though, ask him if anything was the matter. Chandler had never eaten much (that rabbit food he tried to get the rest of the team on didn’t count as a meal, in Mansell’s opinion), but now he was hardly eating at all. He tried to hide it, kept the door shut during lunch and the few dinners he spent at the office, but they could all tell he was only eating white bread and lettuce. He’d been running to the loo at least twice an hour as well, which couldn’t be normal. 

A few days in, Mansell worked up the nerve to ask him. “Hey, are you feeling all right?” 

Chandler stared blankly at him, and Mansell sighed. All right, the boss wasn’t going to make this easy. 

“You’ve seemed sick, that’s all. You haven’t been eating, and with all of the trips to the lavatory…”

“Ah.” He shook his head. “Oh, no, I’ve just been a bit under the weather. Nothing contagious, of course, I wouldn’t come into the office if I was contagious; must have been something I ate. I’m sure it will pass.” 

Mansell wouldn’t have gotten that nervous about a cold—Chandler was sweating and fidgeting with his collar, looking like a suspect rather than a sick copper—but then again, Mansell wouldn’t do a lot of things that Chandler did. “All right, boss. Hope you feel better!” 

***

Joe hadn’t been down to the basement in a while. Ed had begun to worry, actually, and he was pleased to hear the familiar steps on the stairs. (He stepped carefully, unlike the other officers, who tended to bolt downstairs when they bothered to visit him at all.) The winter had been unseasonably cold, and the centralized heat barely reached the basement, so Ed had taken to wearing several layers of cardigans and pacing around the room while he worked. 

Joe was bundled up as well. Apparently a bit too well—he’d had to pause on his way to Ed to mop his forehead with a wrinkled handkerchief. 

“I’m glad to see you! In regards to that young man you’ve found, I think we ought to be looking into Fanny Adams. I’d discarded it at first because the victims were nothing alike, but then I thought, Edward, is the victim the only person involved in the crime? Of course not! And if you look at the perpetrators, they both leveraged their societal status to evade detection.” 

He had a tendency to babble, he knew it, but Joe usually indulged this habit. Today he looked distracted, and more than a little overheated. Oh, to work in an office where one could overheat! 

“You’ve found a lead, you said?” 

He nodded. “I’ll send the files upstairs with you. You might ask them to send some of your heating my way, Joseph.” 

He looked confused at that. “I’ve been freezing all morning. We’ve all broken out the mittens.” 

“You looked…oh, never mind. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” 

Joe gritted his teeth into a smile. “Perfectly well, thank you.” 

“Take care of yourself.” Ed only hoped it wasn’t contagious. He was nearly finished organizing Scottish crimes, and he couldn’t afford the days off. 

***

Chandler had seemed to have a better handle on his habits lately. Miles didn’t _watch_ him, per se; it was just looking out for his coworker. And during the course of that looking out, he’d noticed that Chandler had stopped flickering the light switches and running off every five minutes to wash up. For a few weeks, he’d seemed almost happy. Then the clothes changes began again, less frequently than the worst of their cases but enough to be worrisome. He’d bought himself a bulk bag of lemon drops as well, popping them like pills. 

Chandler wasn’t his son, Miles knew. He was a friend, and a coworker, and it wasn’t his position to tell him what to do. But Miles worried, and perhaps it was better that way, because God knew Chandler wasn’t going to worry for himself.

In hindsight, he could have found a better way to ask than sauntering into Chandler’s office during lunch and asking, “How’s the stress been lately?”

Chandler’s answer was a deer-in-the-headlights look and a quiet, “I’ve been well, thank you.” He unwrapped another lemon drop, popping it into his mouth.

“You know that none of us would look down on you if you needed outside help.”

He frowned at Miles. “Of course.”

“You’re not concerned at all about these new habits?”

“It’s not—” He sighed. “I don’t want to discuss this now, Ray. Rest assured, I’m taking care of myself.”

Well, he couldn’t say anything to that. Chandler didn’t stop eating the lemon drops, and Miles didn’t stop worrying, and all in all their talk only made both of them more wary of each other. So much for the powers of communication; this was the last time Miles was taking his wife’s advice in the office.

***

It worried Riley that she hadn’t noticed something was wrong earlier.

You don’t get to the point of fainting without something being seriously wrong for a while, and Riley noticed when things were wrong. She was the level-headed one, the one who didn’t get so caught up in the case that she missed her coworkers falling apart ( _someone_ had to be). But, looking back on the week, she hadn’t seen any signs of this. He’d acted oddly, sure, but no more so than usual. Should she have been concerned about how frequently he’d been skipping lunch? She’d put it down to the stress of their case. Aside from that (and his new taste for lemon drops, which was certainly innocuous), she’d missed the state he was in until he fell to the floor in front of her.

Of course, he didn’t want to admit anything was wrong. “It’s perfectly—well, not normal, but it’s happened before, and I can usually handle it better.”

“This is a regular occurrence?”

She could see the moment he realized what he was in for. “Not regular, _per se_. That is to say…it’s under control. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“You need to see a doctor, Chandler.”

He sighed. “I’ve made an appointment. I’m taking care of myself, I promise.”

She had the uneasy feeling that he was lying to her, but she didn’t want to push. If it happened again, though, she’d drag him to the A&E herself and to hell with the consequences. She’d be damned if her boss would die on her watch..

***

Kent hadn’t meant to stay late, and he _certainly_ hadn’t meant to be the only person left in the office save Chandler. He refused to call his feelings a crush (12-year-olds had crushes), but with the way his heart fluttered around Chandler, it was probably better that they weren’t alone together.

And then Kent had gotten caught up in reading through case files, and missed both dinner and his intended departure time, and now it was 9 in the evening and the office (the entire building, most likely) was empty save for Kent at his desk and Chandler locked in his office.

Kent really ought to check on him. Imagine the scandal if his DI had dropped dead of a heart attack and Kent left the office, not realizing his supervisor was dead in the next room. It was only reasonable to make sure Chandler was all right.

That didn’t stop his nerves as he approached the door, or the way his stomach twisted when Chandler invited him in, barely audible.

It took Kent a while to find him. Chandler had sat himself down in a corner of the office, looking much worse for the wear. His lips were bitten raw, and every time a car passed by outside, he flinched.

”What’s happened?”

Chandler flinched at the sound of Kent’s voice as well, and he knelt down to the ground and lowered his voice. “Is there anything I can do?”

To his horror, Chandler started crying. “I’m fine, I swear. Or I will be, soon.” He wiped away a few tears, leaving his face a splotchy red and white mess that Kent definitely shouldn’t have found as attractive as he did. 

“You’re aware, of course, of my obsessive-compulsive disorder.”

.

“Not too hard to pick up on.” Kent laughed nervously. Oh, Lord, that was the wrong thing to say, Chandler would hate him—

“I’ve, ah, started on medication for it, on the recommendation of my therapist. I meant to tell the team once I had the dosage sorted, but as you can see, I seem to be having a reaction.”

And then they were both laughing their heads off, sitting on the floor of his office together, and Chandler relaxed a bit.

“It was the traffic,” he said once he’d caught his breath. “I couldn’t hear anything but the cars pass, I couldn’t even hear myself think, and I was sure that if I had to go on listening to it I’d die. And to get home, I’d have to go outside, which would only bring me closer, and…this explanation isn’t making me sound any saner, is it?”

“I don’t put too much stock in sanity,” Kent said. “Would you like me to take you home? Not take you home as in a date, just drive you home, you know, you don’t seem like you should be driving, and…” He trailed off, face flushing hot.

“I’d appreciate that.”

He did seem calmer during the drive to his apartment, although he twitched enough at sudden noises and missed announcing enough turns that Kent was very glad he hadn’t left Chandler to find his own way home.

Kent walked him to the door. He worried that might be taking it a step too far, but there wasn’t really a social script for talking your coworker down from a nervous breakdown. Chandler smiled appreciatively, and lingered in the doorway to his flat, and Kent found his gaze drawn to Chandler’s lips.

They both stumbled into the kiss. Chandler seemed as startled as Kent did, which eased some of his worries. And then, just when Kent was thinking that at least this thing (their relationship?) could only get less awkward, they both apologized at the exact same time.

“I don’t mind,” Kent said. “We can forget this ever happened if you’d rather, but I’d prefer not to.”

Chandler smiled. “I’d meant to wait on this until I’d settled my dose as well, but would you perhaps like to join me for a drink?” He glanced over his shoulder and laughed a bit helplessly. “Not tonight, of course, unless you fancy watching me have a nervous breakdown over glasses of water. But I can let you know when I’m a bit more…stable, and we can meet after work…”

”I’d like that.”

Kent could barely stop himself from skipping back to his car.

**Author's Note:**

> Some of this was drawn from my own experiences (meds-induced nervous breakdowns are fun!) [Telm_393](http://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393) and [Crazymeds](http://www.crazymeds.us/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage) were both very helpful with the rest.


End file.
